66. Reclaiming Hope (23)

With his gun in hand, Balboa jumped down from one of the troop transports assigned to him and his company.

A wave of heat rushed straight at his eyes, making him squint involuntarily in an instant.

He looked up at the sky and found it startlingly blue in this pocket dimension. The sun was an unparalleled blazing orb, radiating such heat that he almost felt his hair being scorched—and that was no illusion. He raised a hand to touch the top of his head, and his palm came away burning hot.

Only a few seconds had passed between jumping from the transport and finding his footing, yet the sun had already done something this inhumane to his hair.

The Hellhound captain grimaced as he took his helmet from behind his waist and put it on. He knew what would happen next, but he had no other choice.

His communicator rang at just the right moment, delivering a new order to his ear: explore east.

East?

Balboa turned to look in that direction. The towering tidal wave that had come crashing down earlier seemed almost still before his eyes, only it had changed color, becoming a vast and boundless sea of yellow sand.

That lifeless, withered yellow made him instinctively wary.

After many years of service, he had been to death worlds before. Those places had felt just like the desert before him.

The captain licked his already shriveled lips, turned around, counted his men, repeated the mission, and then led his company away from the camp still under construction.

Marching through the desert was unquestionably miserable work, especially beneath the fierce midday sun. The rolling heat was secondary; what was truly unbearable was the loose sand beneath their feet.

Wearing helmets and armor, carrying lasguns, and burdened with supplies—under such